How to deal with mental and emotional overwhelm NOW

Jul 12

I have an incredible gift for you today because you deserve beautiful and luxurious little gifts to support you.

Being sensitive is such a wonderful adventure. You're like a magical machine for problem-solving, empathy, compassion, analytical thinking, considering things from all angles and... as wonderful and thoughtful and perceptive as we are, gosh it can be mentally and emotionally overwhelming!

Being magical and talented can be hard work sometimes!

Some people watch a movie and afterwards say:

Friend 1: “That was fun! Let’s get ice cream now.”

You'd say: “I was just so moved by the contrast between the classical music and the modernist imagery, and I almost cried when she had to make that unbearable choice within herself that no one in her life knew she was struggling with. I loved the Mum too- Do you think she had trauma in her childhood which is why she was so emotionally shut-down?”

Friend 1- What?!

And that's a bit how it goes in life every day usually. Other people move through things with ease, on to the next thing.

They're like Neo moving through the Matrix dodging everything that comes their way.

How do they do this?!

I was always perplexed how I could ask my ex-partner how his day was at a new job and he’d simply reply “Busy” and not need to talk about it any more.

Busy? That’s it? Who did you talk to? How awkward did you feel settling in? What is your office like? What funny scenes did you see on the mini-bus taxi on the way to work? (South African Taxi buses are hysterical mini-soap operas in themselves) but nope, he was happy with “Busy.”

Meanwhile, I’d had two existential crises because I heard a beautiful song and written 12 pages in my journal before he even reached work 😂

I know, I know, I’m VERY sensitive and you may not relate to everything I’m saying.

But do you ever feel like:

Your thoughts snowball into ball of wool that has no beginning and no end? (My knitting-loving Nonna would have loved this in literal form).
Your mind has 3,294,830,945,834 open tabs of things to process but never really get to close any.
When you have to make a decision you write novels on the pro's and con's lists and deep dive into endless research, yet rarely come up to a conclusion about what to do.
When someone upsets you or crosses your boundaries you get 'analysis paralysis' over if you should speak up or not.

Let me give you a preview of what you end up saying to them- absolutely nada 😂

You're just going to sit on it and push it down and let the steam ring out of your ears hoping they will see it as a form of communication.

To the outside world, you’re daydreaming or staring like a zombie or need so much alone time.

Internally, you're just sitting there in a bowl of mental spaghetti that you can’t find your way out of.

There’s a hint of magic or wisdom (I’d say these are the bits of Chorizo you find amongst the mince), but it gets swallowed up or drowned in the sauce of worry, anxiety and self-doubt.

Forgive the spaghetti reference, but as a wog-girl myself, I find it fitting.

Essentially, if you’re more of a sensitive woman, you have LOTS of thoughts, all the time, that go around and around in loops or in different directions so that you can never quite figure out which direction to go in.

You don’t know how to make your mind stop or how to come to a conclusion or a decision about a topic because you have 1000 thoughts on the ‘positives list’ and 1000 thoughts on the ‘negatives list.’

Literally me this morning: ‘That’s enough thinking, Gab! I’ve got to make a decision finally! Oh wait I haven’t consulted my astrology app today- I better juuuuuuuust check that before I finalise this minute decision.’

Send help!

Sometimes the only reprieve you get is when you’re distracted or sleeping, so you tune out with TV or social media to drown out the thoughts.

Yet tomorrow, the thoughts will still be there.

As well as thinking a lot, you also feel deeply.

You wear your heart on your sleeve but it feels like a heart with amour.

A raw skin, without a shield.

You don’t know if you’re right to be upset or hurt, or you’re just a silly sensitive woman who needs to get over it because no one else would have been hurt by that.

This self-doubt often perpetuates a pattern of you keeping your hurts to yourself, trying to swallow them down like hot coals.

Feeling deeply also means sensing deeply with your five senses.

Because of this, you may often feel exhausted by travel, shopping centres, large crowds, concerts or even your place of work or study, because there are too many people, lights, phone calls, interactions, sounds, notifications, emails, classes, meetings and assignments and ‘Oh my Lord I just want to go sit by the river for ten hours and find some peace and quiet!’

If you’re a Mum you may feel this overwhelm when parenting, and also dream of lying by the river for ten hours without anyone yelling “Mum!” 179 times a minute.

But you rarely can go off and sit on a proverbial rock as you need.

The impact on you is that you have to spend so much time being with your thoughts and emotions it's hard to be present.

It's hard to do life when you have so much stuff to mentally organise and process internally.

It takes you longer to make decisions, and you might miss opportunities, adventures or spontaneous moments of joy.

You rarely speak up and out about your needs so you keep it all inside, and no boundaries get put in place.

What do we do about it?

So, what do you do with all of these thoughts and emotions? They just are going to be part of us forever. You can’t do anything to stop them or support them, right?

There’s actually A LOT I can teach you to support those thoughts as a coach and therapist, but as a starting point from today, I want you to shift your intention to PROCESSING your thoughts and emotions, not just getting stuck in "Analysis Paralysis" and drowning in the overwhelm.

Set the intention to make decisions and come to resolutions in your thinking, rather than giving yourself FOREVER to think about something 2,938,439,453 times with no resolution.

You want to move through the thoughts and emotions quicker, let go of hurts, express yourself, speak up and make decisions and resolutions.

Goodbye stuckness, hello movement and traction.

Captain Sensitive,

Gabriella

P.S Work with me through bespoke counselling for sensitive women here.

PPS. You are a resilient, strong, wise, perceptive, empowered woman, and everything you need to support yourself is within you and at your fingertips. Don't despair dear one, you are full of grit and tenacity and we're going to figure this all out together.